Author’s Response

Abstract

I am truly honored by Bryan McCann’s, Eric Arnesen’s, and Nancy Raquel Mirabal’s thoughtful and provocative responses to my book, as well as Leon Fink’s introduction to the forum. I am really thankful for the time they took to read and digest Solidarity, as well as to the Kalmanovitz Initiative, Labor, Leon Fink, and Patrick Dixon for connecting us all.It was especially gratifying to learn that the editors of the journal felt that Solidarity has something to offer labor historians, in part because the book itself can be read as an exploration into how the relative absence of a powerful labor movement has placed serious limits on US-based left internationalism. “Labor” shapes the story of Solidarity and the promise of internationalism as much by its absence as by its presence.Writing a history of US-based Latin American solidarity presented numerous challenges, at least two of which were self-imposed and relevant to some of the issues raised by the commentators. From the outset, I sought to write a relatively readable history of Latin American solidarity from the Haitian Revolution to the present in about two hundred pages. In trying to keep it short and accessible, my hope was that Solidarity could be read not only (or even primarily) by academics, but by those in the United States who have participated in solidarity with Latin America. The idea was not simply that US-based “internationalists” might appreciate knowing more about this rich, long, history, but that a synthetic account would allow activists to situate — and hopefully think critically about — their own political work within a broader trajectory of left internationalism within the Americas.Whatever its virtues, defining the project in this way had certain consequences. Most obviously, by moving through more than two hundred years of history relatively quickly, important stories, currents, and actors were inevitably left out (and even those that were included received inadequate attention). The book paints in broad strokes and never aspired to be a comprehensive account of Latin American solidarity. Likewise, keeping it relatively short and (in theory) accessible, also meant that not only would a discussion of historiographical debates be left for another time, but that historical periods and actors were treated with less nuance than many historians might be comfortable with, especially those with expertise in particular eras.This attempt at brevity, and in some ways the project itself, also had the effect of attributing more cohesion to the history of left internationalism than it possesses. To be sure, I insisted that anything we might now refer to as Latin American solidarity tended to be very decentralized, inconsistent in presence, ideologically differentiated, and generally limited in its capacity to influence power. Aside from being hard to define historically, Left internationalism has always been characterized more by its promise and potential than by its actual existence in the sense of possessing the capacity to advance a coherent political project or shape power in meaningful ways. Even with these caveats, however, I recognize that the very endeavor of writing a history of Latin American solidarity suggests that there is something definable as Latin American solidarity as a coherent historical subject over a relatively long period of time. This is not necessarily the case.The second (self-inflicted) challenge derived from the fact that from a fairly early date I saw Solidarity as something of a polemic written by someone on the Left who had been engaged in Latin American solidarity and other Left currents for most of my adult life. Put bluntly, I had something to say not only about Latin American solidarity, but also about the trajectories of the US Left. The book, in this sense, has a fairly strong political compass. I struggled with this as I wrote and tried to make sure that the political intervention did not overwhelm or distort the history. I was, however, equally concerned with guarding against another tendency that I find equally problematic within the professional disciplines of history and anthropology — namely, the propensity to hold nuance, subtlety, and sophistication in such high regard that we end up not making much of a political intervention at all (or, at least not one that is perceptible to the average reader). Scholars and others can judge how well I navigated this tension.I mention all this in part because many of the issues raised by the commentators are in some ways tied to the limitations (and hopefully virtues!) of a project that sought to (1) produce a relatively short/accessible book that traced a fairly fragmented subject over a long period of time while (2) also trying to make a fairly pointed political intervention.Bryan McCann’s thoughtful commentary points to the abovementioned political tension when he notes that my critique of short-term, targeted, campaigns might be a bit too unforgiving. This point is well taken and is no doubt shared by other readers. To be fair, I never meant to suggest that limited, short-term campaigns to free a political prisoner, force a corporation to behave better, or stop particularly egregious acts of state violence have no place in the political toolbox of the Left, or that any political action that is not somehow trying to immediately capture state power or decisively challenge corporations is somehow a waste of time (McCann isn’t suggesting I say this, either). The fact is that in many political moments and situations short-term campaigns either make a ton of sense or are the best we can do. And, as McCann’s example of the solidarity around Lori Berenson highlights, targeted initiatives can often add up to something in the long term in ways that those who initiated them never intended nor could foresee.Nevertheless, the book does try to highlight something that (in my experience) many activists, and more than a few academics, often fail to acknowledge, and that is that the emergence of campaigns as a go-to political strategy in the 1970s not only served to reveal the commitment, ingenuity, and energy of political actors, but also reflected the declining political power of the Left. Turning to this tactic, in a sense, demonstrated how bad things had become politically. Many of those who initially experimented with these type of campaigns in the 1970s, whether it be union-orchestrated corporate campaigns or human rights campaigns to stop torture, recognized that they were in this mess because unions, social movements, and other actors had lost political power and now found themselves in a position where corporations and/or governments could literally get away with murder — and where crises and abuses were so outrageous that they required an immediate response to save jobs or even lives. This is quite reasonable.My rather simple point is that although it is quite possible that political initiatives of this type may “add up” to something in the future, often in ways we cannot predict when first engaging in political activity, we should also not automatically assume that they will — especially since so many of them seem to rely on crisis and egregious abuses for their political fuel. It is worth reflecting on where limited, short-term political projects may or may not be taking us in the long term, the kind of reflection that happened with less frequency as the Left grew weaker and these types of campaigns became institutionalized as accepted political practice. Are they, for instance, helping advance or build working-class power? This is not to say that all our political work must do this, but it’s a question worth contemplating.Nancy Raquel Mirabal comes at the book from a different angle, suggesting that Solidarity does not deal sufficiently with the “activism of communities of color, women, and immigrants,” and asks a provocative question: How would the argument “change if we were to examine US left-wing politics and movements from the perspective of immigrants and communities of color in the United States?” It is interesting that she focuses her critique on the first half Solidarity, or that part of the book where African Americans and immigrants are absolutely central to the story. This may be due to the fact that this period is where her own expertise lies, including her wonderful book, Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823–1957 (2017).Solidarity in fact begins with the Haitian Revolution, focusing not on the revolution itself, but on how relatively small groups of white and particularly Black people in the United States were inspired by (and engaged in limited solidarity with) this world historical revolution. There is, as the book makes clear, relatively little US-based solidarity with Haiti, and almost nothing outside of African Americans. Solidarity then looks at how small numbers of people in the United States, and particularly African Americans as well as Cuban and Mexican immigrants, sought to support Latin American independence movements, Cuba’s long struggle for independence, and Mexico’s revolution. The book necessarily moves through these histories fairly quickly, but immigrants and communities of color are central to their telling. Likewise, as I hope Solidarity makes clear, immigrants, as well as African Americans, are at the heart of solidarity efforts around the US occupations of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua during the first half of the 1900s, as well similar efforts around the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s and 1960s.In this sense, although I completely sympathize with Mirabal’s desire to infuse all of these cases with more details and historical actors, it was just not possible given the historical sweep of a relatively short book. Solidarity moves quickly. I also really appreciate her highlighting more examples and adding historical richness and nuance to the account, but it is not clear to me how doing so might change the arguments of the book. She suggests it does, but never really articulates how. I think this is partly because up until the 1960s, or roughly the period her critique focuses on, immigrants and communities of color are in fact at the core of the broader story told in Solidarity. Adding more of their stories would have no doubt made the book richer, and far longer, but I am not necessarily sure how they would change any of the arguments since communities of color and immigrants are already central to the story and inhabit the first half of the book’s pages.Although Mirabal does not take her discussion of the book much past the 1960s, I’ll risk verging into self-criticism by suggesting that this is where her argument about the relative absence of communities of color and immigrants in the story may be more relevant. I do not deal with this too directly in the book, but a number of things happen in the decades after World War II that make Latin American solidarity pretty darn white. I will mention just one here (which really oversimplifies a complex story). Human rights served to greatly expand the overall number of people in the United States who were engaged in solidarity efforts with Latin America, but it did so by drawing energy, resources, and people from institutions and organizations that were largely inhabited and run by a white middle class. Churches, human rights groups, lobbyists, DC policy makers, NGOs, and the like were very white spaces — or at least the ones that jumped most fully into human rights work were. Solidarity became a heavily faith-based endeavor rooted in largely “white” Christian (and Jewish) institutions. The fact that the most prominent human rights campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s largely focused on cases outside of the Caribbean, in Latin American countries that had far smaller Black populations, probably also contributed to the whitening of solidarity (e.g., in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and even Central America).As I point out in the book, this does not mean African Americans or immigrants stopped engaging in Latin American solidarity during this period. It does mean that efforts by African Americans became, in a sense, demographically overwhelmed by the explosion of human rights institutions peopled (largely) by white actors. Immigrants, as the book shows, were central to solidarity efforts around South America in the 1970s and Central America in the 1980s. Many took on important leadership roles, though many others also struggled to be seen as more than “victims” whose stories were used to great effect by a movement dominated by a white middle class. More of this history will no doubt be revealed (and challenged) by additional research.Eric Arnesen and I obviously disagree on a fair amount, some of which is tied not simply to the fact that Solidarity is guided by a fairly strong political compass, but by a radical Left one that Arneson is uncomfortable with. It might be useful, however, to start by addressing what we agree on, in part because I think there is more overlap between our positions than meets the eye — though, to be fair, we may just be so far apart that what he offers as critique I embrace as praise.First, as I state in the introduction to the book, the concept of international solidarity is hard to pin down, and Arnesen is absolutely correct that the book works from a purposely expansive understanding of solidarity as a historical subject — a broad umbrella of internationalism that includes a variety of actors who opposed some aspects of US presence in Latin America. For the book, this exploration of internationalism includes a diverse range of actors whose political engagements are best described as anti-interventionist (a term and distinction used in the book). Anti-interventionists opposed aspects of US involvement in Latin America, but typically did not engage (or see themselves) in “solidarity” with Latin Americans (even if their political activities might benefit the region). Most of the time this includes what we might call progressive anti-interventionists who, for example, opposed US military aid to Nicaragua but in no way saw themselves in solidarity with the Sandinistas or other political actors in Nicaragua. These stories of internationalism are included alongside what is more comfortably and narrowly understood as solidarity — that is, instances where US-based actors engage with Latin Americans to not only alter or stop US intervention in the region, but also to advance a shared political project that is typically (though by no means always) understood through an anti-imperialist and socialist lens (that comes in many forms).Arnesen may be correct in suggesting the concept of solidarity cannot hold all the movements explored in this book under one umbrella, and perhaps internationalism (also used through the book) is more apt. I ran with solidarity in part because most readers and activists refer to Latin American solidarity, even if the popular notion of Latin American solidarity is a relatively recent invention. I also use the term in a broad sense, to include anti-interventionists, because when the notion of Latin American solidarity entered into popular usage most activists saw anti-interventionists and (what Arnesen refers to as) “solidarity activists” as fellow travelers, with some seeing the political distinction as an important one while others failed to recognize or appreciate it at all. It was quite blurry in practice, especially during the Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement when Latin American solidarity comes into its own, and when anti-interventionism in the form of opposition to US military aid was understood by most people (including Central Americans) as meaningful solidarity. More than this, it was precisely the relationships and tension between the (typically) more moderate currents of anti-interventionism and the (typically) more radical strands of solidarity that I wanted to explore (and am quite upfront about in the book).Arnesen is also correct in noting that I personally “favor” Left internationalism, a cross-border solidarity that not only opposes US imperialism but also works collectively with Latin Americans to build a more just and equitable world. I’m quite clear about this in the introduction. I would, however, quibble with his characterization of both my understanding of Left internationalism (which he seems to imply borders on uncritical adoration) and anti-interventionism (which he seems to think I am overly dismissive of). In fact, to this point, I could not agree more with his statement that “one can read the examples in this book as evidence of just how ineffective, over all, over time, the broader Left has been.” Absolutely.Such a sober conclusion is accurate, and I agree with Arnesen that scholars and others can certainly disagree on the extent to which this overall failure, which includes important (if partial and limited) victories, is tied more to external factors or to the positions/actions/decisions internal to the Left itself. It is my hope (perhaps delusion) that Solidarity will provoke such conversations within the Left itself, particularly with respect to the relationship between immediate political interventions and long-term visions and projects.The book assumes, and I think makes quite clear, that most of the efforts examined in its pages were quite marginal to the broader political currents they swam against and challenged. This is even true, as I point out, of the largest and most prominent of these “movements,” the Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement, which even at its peak was not particularly large and could not shape the broader turn to the Right taking place within the United States during the 1980s (and was itself severely limited and isolated by this shift). This is not to say it made no difference, and in fact it is remarkable how much the peace movement was able to constrain, and force a public conversation about, the US foreign policies of an otherwise popular president.This brings us to human rights, which Arnesen is correct in saying that I see as a fairly limited (but important) project. I acknowledge in the book — though apparently not loudly enough as it seems to have escaped Arnesen — that the human rights’ practice of actively distancing itself from political projects, and its strategy of separating abuses from the politics of both perpetrator and victim, was what made it successful. It was by divorcing themselves from political projects that human rights organizations could claim objectivity, be seen as legitimate, and successfully intervene on behalf of human rights victims. This was a hugely important intervention, and is also what breathed life into Latin American solidarity. By defining its project in this limited way, and welcoming anyone under its umbrella who opposed egregious abuses, human rights was able to attract immense human and financial resources to US-based solidarity. This was a game changer. Latin American solidarity quite literally emerged in the 1970s and 1980s through human rights, in part because it was the big tent under which a range of anti-interventionists and solidarity activists could work together.But this was something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, human rights was the air that activists breathed and the force that animated the political work that gave rise to Latin American solidarity during the 1970s and 1980s. On the other hand, human rights also consumed most of the oxygen in the internationalist room in the sense that its rapid rise and explosion onto the scene had the effect of marginalizing more radical political projects. This is the tension that Solidarity attempts to trace, in part because it has consequences for solidarity work going forward into the 1990s and beyond. As I make clear in the book, this is not to suggest that the inability of Left internationalism to blossom during this period is the fault of the human rights movement. This is due to many other factors, including missteps by the Left itself.But it is to say that because human rights practice emerged so rapidly and so forcefully it served to obscure other projects, especially for a younger generation of activists who emerged as the Left was disappearing from public life and came to see human rights as the way to engage in progressive internationalism — and were often less aware that its political vision was so limited (though even here, I point to how human rights could serve as a gateway to radical politics). Human rights also brought with it — and helped pass along — a solidarity infrastructure rooted in professional NGOs that has been ill-equipped to deal with neoliberalism, something the last third of book takes on through a discussion of solidarity work in the 1990s and 2000s.